a5c7b9f00b The crew of an experimental underwater nuclear base are forced to struggle for their lives when their explorations disturb a creature who threatens to destroy their base. A group of U.S. Navy engineers, led by Capt. Laidlaw (Taurean Blacque), are building an underwater base when they inadvertently disturb the lair of a gigantic creature. The monster attacks, and the crew, including lovers Collins (Nancy Everhard) and McBride (Greg Evigan), tries to evacuate, but the facility is badly damaged. After the exterior is breached, the increasingly desperate people become separated from one another, and the creature begins to pick them off one by one. A secret underwater team are exploring the possibilities of underwater colonisation with the financial backing from the US Navy and in return for that they blow up an underwater carven so they can construct a deep-sea missile silo, though in doing so they release some sort of prehistoric sea monster that picks off the team one by one- but that&#39;s only one of their many problems.<br/><br/>This is a very formulaic- but reasonably fun Horror-Sci-Fi film by director Sean. S Cunningham (Friday the 13th), which came out the same timethe overblown- but dull &#39;The Abyss&#39; and for me the best of the three &#39;Leviathan&#39;.<br/><br/>Fairly routine stuff, but still it has it&#39;s moments of sheer excitement. The setting of the film is good, from the set details of the &#39;DeepStar six&#39; laboratory base, where most of the action occurs too the alienation of the calm ocean floor.<br/><br/>The characters are your stereotypical types, but the performances are well-delivered with Miguel Ferrerthe very edgy and hysterical Snyder who steals the show and Matt McCoythe wise cracking Richardson adds some life too. The script had its tedious spots of state the bloody obvious comments- but it&#39;s mostly bearable, with some added wit provided by McCoy&#39;s character.<br/><br/>The direction by Cunningham is solid, with some nice touches of suspense created and not forgetting a couple of gory moments that truly standout. While the plot is reasonable- it still follows your usual monster on the loose formula, though the idea of the creature&#39;s origin was interesting- but it definitely could have been explored in to more. Though other than a sea-monster causing trouble for the underwater crew they also face human foolishness and a leaking laboratory base, with some of the crew falling victims to themselves than the monster.<br/><br/>The pace can be slow at times, though that does help add tension and it definitely picks up in the last 40mins when the monster actually fully appears. While the special effects and the monster itself is fair and it does look a bit like the monsters from &#39;Tremors&#39; and add a bit of crab too- but it does look more ridiculous and very rubbery when the whole design appears on screenÂ… I was hoping that they would keep it mostly hidden e.g. &#39;Jaws&#39;- but overall it&#39;s not too distracting.<br/><br/>Well, have I gone soft,this discreet sea-monster film has definitely improved on my second viewing? What got me excited about this movie was the crew, Sean Cunningham, Jim Isaacs and Henry Manfredini have all been involved with the Friday the 13th series of movies. Given that they&#39;re top of my list of &#39;chilled night in&#39; movies and keep me warm at night so to speak, the idea of a non-Jason movie with these fellas working on it pricked up my ears.<br/><br/>The movie is actually quite similar in feel to their other significant works, in that it&#39;s tense, well scored and at times quite bloody. You&#39;ll certainly be sucked into the movies atmosphere. What also helps is that unlike many other films of this genre, the script and acting are tight, so much so that you really don&#39;t want the characters to die, a change from the normal &#39;you&#39;re so dumb, I hope you get a pitchfork in the neck&#39; line of thinking most suspense horrors take.<br/><br/>The creature (I won&#39;t describe it heavily,it&#39;s a big part of the movie and knowing what it looks like etc might spoil it a bit) is quite a piece of work, doing the unthinkable and managing to sneak up on people underwater despite being one of the largest beasts I&#39;ve seen in a movie for quite some time. Several times I jumped out of genuine shock at its attacks.<br/><br/>So,you can tell, I really liked this film, so why the 7 out of 10, shouldn&#39;t it be a 9 or 10? Well, it has its shortcomings. The Sci-Fi aspect of the movie is quite underdeveloped, which is a shame,the production design is excellent, and I wish a little more had been done with it than just creating an underwater haunted house. Also, the movie has not aged well at all. Certain sections (largely due to the budget, so I don&#39;t really blame them) look like they&#39;ve been lifted straight out of Stingray. I can&#39;t help but feel that most of the budget was sunk into the creature (I tell you now though, it has paid off in spades). All of this unfortunately makes the movie a little patchy to watch, hence the 7.
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